


A Drawn Out Encounter

by BrenanaBread



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 09:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrenanaBread/pseuds/BrenanaBread
Summary: Sometimes strangers give you all the support you need.





	A Drawn Out Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> This is a piece from the Miraculous Lean On Me Zine which you should definitely check out [here](https://jattendschaton.tumblr.com/post/167918922847/miraculous-lean-on-me-zine-is-now-available-for)!

Adrien rubbed a hand along his shoulder, smoothing out the knot that formed where his bag rubbed against his neck. His body slumped forward, clumps of hair tickling along his eyelashes, and wisping across his vision. His legs ached from standing all day, back stiff and strained from the forced casual poses. 

Each time he blinked, his brief reprieve into cool darkness was bombarded with camera flashes stealing away his last moments of peace, exhausting him all over again.

He pulled out his phone from his messenger bag to check the time while he waited on the metro platform. 

00:45

He was just going to make the last train that could get him home.

He stomach clenched as he flicked through his phone to check his schedule, knowing he’d have to get up again in less than five hours. He was already planning his coffee breaks throughout the next several days.

Though he desperately wanted to sit and rest his legs, he feared stopping his movements would instantly put him to sleep, so instead he paced the ground, the toes of his shoes scuffing and catching on the imperfections along the floor.

His mind raced, forcing him to relive each criticism thrown his way since that morning. The makeup artist complaining about the dark circles under his eyes and lecturing him on his skin care routine as if it were unfathomable for a young adult to have blemishes making him wish he could scrape his skin off. She argued that his eyebrows were growing too thick and that his lips had thinned all while Adrien sat in his chair, shrinking in on himself, hoping if he curled into a small enough ball he would disappear altogether. 

The photographer picked at his smile and posing, asking for the return of the ‘genuine Adrien’ she had worked with years ago. When she rhetorically asked him whether or not he even wanted to be there, he had to clench his teeth from letting loose the “No” he so desperately felt.

Adrien felt beaten and bruised, like he was kicked to the ground and picked up only to be shoved off a cliff.

He hated working as a model. He hated the long hours and the strict diets. He hated the personal attacks thrown at him every day about his looks and his posture and his aspirations. He hated the fighting and the manipulation and the subtle put-downs. He hated the way it left him feeling empty and worn out, a used rag no one bothered to wring out and clean.

He continued walking down along the edge of the platform, various grievances and complaints barreling through his mind, competing for his attention. His steps picked up in speed as his thoughts dashed, goading him along. His breathing quickened and fists clenched, body poised to fight.

He didn’t even realize how far he’d gone until he looked up and found himself staring at the far wall of the metro station.

His eyes connected with another green pair, and his anger steadily deepened. 

A hot coil curled inside his gut, twisting his stomach into heavy knots. His own face smiled back at him, fake and mocking.

Adrien had forgotten about this advertisement, but it suddenly filled his vision until he couldn’t see anything else. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck rose in preparation for battle as he stood motionless in front of the horrible image, fake and deceptive down to its core.

Adrien’s mouth twisted as he stared at his disgustingly fake smile and clearly unnatural posture. He pinched his thigh when he noticed how severely they retouched his skin, eyes narrowing as he fumed over the way they whitened his teeth brightened his eyes.

Adrien knew this was how all advertisements worked since the dawn of editing. He had lived in the world of photoshoots and runways and façades all his life. But it had never felt so disingenuous. He had never felt so manipulative, like he was lying to the thousands of people who would look into his eyes and not know how deeply he hated his job, how thick the mask he wore was.

He wanted to rip the ad off the wall. He wanted to throw it onto the train tracks and watch it break into a thousand tiny pieces or set it on fire and let the warmth of the flames burn away the deep seated chill that lingered in his bones.

His hatred grew the longer he stared, mind whirling, jaw clenching. It reached its peak and suddenly he was in motion.

Adrien’s hand dove into his messenger bag, fingers fiddling around the inner pockets desperate to find their target. 

When they tapped against a thick black marker, Adrien’s lips tilted in a sinister smirk.

He charged at the ad, uncapping the pen quickly before darting along the oversized picture. Above fake Adrien’s head, he drew a single rain cloud, heavy and dark. His marker smoothly transitioned along the picture, dotting raindrops all over his body and drawing one of his feet stranded in a puddle.

He could hear his train approaching as he worked on finishing touches and he swiftly dropped his marker back inside his bag, stepping away from his masterpiece feeling somehow both lighter and like rocks filled his gut.

____

Adrien wiped under his eyes, vigorously trying to get rid of leftover mascara flakes from his few hours of sleep.

His body bent as the train curved along the tracks, one hand clinging to the metal rail for balance, while the other tightly gripped his bag.

As it pulled into the metro station, Adrien patted a hand along his face, pinching his cheeks, trying to wake himself up as much as possible before starting the day.

When he stepped off the train and onto the platform, he immediately turned his head to the right, seeking out the advertisement he had vandalized the night before. 

He stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes slid across the picture, commuters behind him knocking into his back and muttering curses.

After a moment frozen in place, Adrien surged forward, tripping over his own feet as he ran to stand in front of the ad.

The picture was the same: Model Adrien dutifully smiling out at the viewer, selling some product no one needed. The dark cloud Adrien drew the previous night was still intact, drops raining down, a puddle coating his foot.

But his eyes widened at the picture’s new addition. Drawn in a thin, bright red marker, an umbrella rested above his head. Whoever had drawn it had even used the black dots he’d drawn for rain as polka dots along the umbrella’s surface, giving it a rough ladybug pattern. 

A warmth bloomed low in his stomach, spreading its tendrils up his chest and down his arms to his fingertips. 

His skin tingled and fingers itched to grab his marker and add more.

Adrien didn’t even know he was smiling as he walked out of the metro station into the budding morning light to the photoshoot location until the makeup artist yelled at him to drop his ‘lovesick puppy face’ so she could paint his lips.

He didn’t understand why the stranger’s simple addition affected him so greatly. It had lifted his mood in the span of 15 seconds and continued to consume his thoughts. He kept thinking about how bright that red umbrella was, completely overshadowing the large swaths of darkness he’d marked the night before.

His thoughts distracted him throughout the day, mulling over why a stranger would take the time to draw a sweet moment out of the gloomy one he’d deliberately created. 

How he could respond? _Should_ he even respond?

The photographer complained about the faraway stare that continuously overtook his gaze, not matching the tone of the shoot. Whenever he’d think about the umbrella, he’d duck his head down and smile to himself, hair falling out of place and getting in his eyes.

He was yelled at more than once about how the upturned collar of the designer’s shirt kept falling, how his hair wouldn’t stay artfully mussed if he kept unthinkingly moving his head, how the pink blush that stained his cheeks stopped being attractive when he left his teenage years.

Even the other model working with him became frustrated when she tripped over his foot, outstretched when it should have been tucked underneath a chair.

The complaints piled up throughout the workday, manifesting in his drooping shoulders and permanently downturned lips. By the time they’d finished for the evening, the sun had long since set and Adrien’s mood had soured to lemon-like proportions.

He trudged to the metro station in the dark, sidewalk only illuminated by the flickering streetlamps and passing headlights as the hazy atmosphere blocked out the moon.

With each step, irritation and loneliness rocked through his system. As he walked through the station to his platform, his fingers twitched, restless and ready to take out his anger in the form of mild vandalism.

When he reached the advertisement, marker already in hand, he pounced.

Electricity flowed through his arm and out onto the board, igniting his insides and thundering through his chest. 

The marker darted along the ad, zigzagging from the bottom of the raincloud to the top of the umbrella as a jagged, threatening lightning bolt.

To complete the look, Adrien drew fizzing lines from his head, frizzing out his hair, and a small tongue poking out the corner of fake Adrien’s lips.

He hummed to himself while snapping the cap back on his marker and strode to the edge of the platform as his train came in, his last thought an emphatic _Fix that_.

____

Adrien could barely lift his feet, almost falling when he stepped off his train the next morning. 

His neck hurt from sleeping on it in a strange position the night before and his shirt was sticky from where his elbow brushed against some used gum, chewed and stuck to the side of a handrail. 

Though his mind tried to trick him into believing his frown would be a permanent fixture on his face, he forced himself to remember his stranger’s silent support, the only thing that kept him trekking through the minefield of disappointment his life had become.

He hoped they’d drawn something new.

When he trudged to the far wall, he wasn’t disappointed.

Drawn next to his picture in the stranger’s trademark red marker was a girl in a raincoat. She had a sash artfully drawn about her waist, flaring the coat out at her hip. He could tell she had a hood, though it wasn’t pulled up over her head, giving him a full view of her fluffy, round pigtails. She was smiling, laughing, while she held out a long skewer, the tip just above his steaming head, roasting a marshmallow. She had a hand outstretched, offering one to the electrocuted Adrien.

Adrien couldn’t help himself. Laughter bubbled up from the bottom of his stomach, tickling its way through his throat, before bursting from his lips and gushing out into the stale station air.

He slapped a hand over his mouth when he realized his outburst had attracted the attention of the commuters around him, but he didn’t feel the shame or embarrassment that usually came from such an unintended outburst.

He quickly pulled out his phone to snap a picture of the stranger’s addition, saving it for the rough day he knew he had ahead of him.

____

Making his way home that night was no easy task.

After another day of passive aggressive confrontations and subtle snubs, Adrien felt weak in his bones. He’d hoped to one day become impervious to the modeling industry’s infamous attacks, but he found that he was less able to handle them now than when he was a teenager.

Fortunately, every time he had a moment to himself, he’d sneak out his phone and take a small peek at the picture he’d captured that morning.

The stranger’s addition still made him smile, even after a full day of thinking about it.

The happiness that swelled in his chest when he thought about it guided him through each off kilter comment and every second he wished he was at home sleeping. It held his hand when someone ridiculed his desire to go back to university for his physics degree and rubbed his back in soothing circles when someone reminded him of the lonely evening ahead.

It rested on his shoulders when he left the photoshoot location and walked outside into a downpour.

Adrien cursed his lack of foresight and ran through the rain without an umbrella or jacket, hair sticking to his forehead in a matted mess and sprinkling droplets on his eyelashes.

He didn’t look up from the ground until he reached the metro station, eyes widening in horror when he noted the pack of people standing outside, all with cross expressions.

Adrien mustered the courage to ask an older gentleman with a wet newspaper tucked under his arm what the crowd was for. The man tersely explained that due to a system failure, the metro was closed for the night. Adrien had enough mind left to thank the man, but groaned as soon as he was out of earshot, realizing he’d have to stay out in the rain and pray he could find a taxi at the late hour.

He shuffled out of the damp huddle of people, breathing in the wet air and shuddering at the smell.

He wished he could take out his phone and look at the picture again.

He walked up to the edge of the street, stretching out his neck and peering down the street.

A car raced down the street, much faster than it should have been traveling in such heavy rain, barreling too close to the sidewalk’s edge and catching a tire in a deep puddle where the street dipped down to meet sidewalk.

The puddle water sputtered up into the air, cascading over Adrien leaving him completely drenched in a dirty street rain shower. 

He scrunched his face tight, hunching his shoulders and holding up his hands to protect his face, but it was far too late. He was soaked from head to toe.

Adrien let out a sigh, straightening his body, and squaring his shoulders. He took a deep breath with his eyes closed for one last moment.

When he opened them, turning his body so that he no longer faced the street, a shock ran through his system, ransacking his breath and punching him in the throat.

He blinked furiously, rubbing at his eyes when the sight before him didn’t change, water still clinging to his face as it poured from the sky.

In front of him stood a pigtailed girl, in a bright, red raincoat with a plastic sash wrapped around her waist, coat flaring out at her hip. She bounced on her feet, looking out into a sea of cars, tipping back her umbrella to increase her field of view.

Her red, ladybug-spotted umbrella.

He let out a surprised gasp, coughing inelegantly when some excess water filtered into his lungs.

The noise caught the woman’s attention and she turned her head to stare at him.

She looked at him with wide eyes and parted lips, taking in his dripping hair and the clothes that clung to his body.

She smiled at him, and Adrien couldn’t tell if it was in recognition or as a comforting gesture.

She took a step towards him and Adrien couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a breath. Another step and he wondered if he’d ever breathe again. He didn’t even notice when the rain stopped pounding on his shoulders, plinking instead on the protective umbrella over his head.

_The red, ladybug umbrella over his head._

She was standing by his side, close enough he could feel the heat radiating off of her even through her jacket, umbrella propped up above both of their heads..

Adrien opened his mouth to speak, wanting to come up with words of thanks, but his thoughts were clogged in his throat, chased down by her dizzyingly blue eyes and stunning smile. Her face was set in a red glow as the streetlights filtered through the umbrella and Adrien noted fondly how her freckled nose and cheeks fit her ladybug theme.

They stood in silence, staring at each other, surprised grins slowly overtaking their features.

When a car pulled up to the curb, narrowly missing the puddle that drenched him earlier, the girl’s smile fell slightly and she took a step back.

“Well,” Adrien’s heart stuttered at the sound of her voice, “this is me,” she pointed to the car parked in front of them.

Adrien’s smile also dropped, but he nodded at her encouragingly, not trusting the strength of his voice.

She held the umbrella out to him and he almost didn’t know what to do.

But when his fingers closed around the handle, tips brushing against hers in a accidental caress, he felt heat flare in his cheeks.

She offered him a small wave, and he responded in kind.

He watched the car drive away and his stomach constricted.

_Why hadn’t he asked for her name? How would he ever see her again?_

His hand tightened around the ladybug umbrella as he berated himself, thumb unthinkingly brushing across an indented piece along the handle.

He looked down to see a logo pressed into the plastic. A gold ‘T’ and ‘S’ surrounded by branches of wheat.

Adrien’s heart stuttered once again. He knew that logo. He’d walked past that bakery hundreds of times.

He knew it was possible this had nothing to do with the mystery girl. It was possible he’d go to the bakery and ask for help and only hit dead ends. It was possible he’d never find her, never cross her path again.

But for the first time in far too long, Adrien wanted to try. He wanted to find this girl who’d lifted his spirits through silly drawings, who’d unknowingly supported him and helped him push through his most hated days, who’d given him her umbrella when he was cold and drenched and forgotten.

For the first time in far too long, Adrien Agreste was going to do something he wanted to do. He wasn’t going to live with a mask covering his face, presenting a façade and masquerading as the truth. For the first time, Adrien didn’t feel fake.

He smiled to himself.

It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Bad Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH476CxJxfg) by Daniel Powter
> 
> Feel free to bother me on tumblr [jattendschaton.tumblr.com](https://jattendschaton.tumblr.com/)


End file.
